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Today millions of people around the world are joining together to show their support for people living with rare diseases. As the name implies, a rare disease affects a small number of people – fewer than 200,000 Americans at any one time.Collectively, though, rare diseases are not uncommon. There are around 7,000 known rare diseases affecting approximately 25 million people in the US.

This week, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that the measles outbreak in the US has grown to 121 cases in 17 states, and 85% of those cases are likely linked to one traveler who became infected overseas and then visited an amusement park in California where it began to spread.

Healthcare wasn’t a top focus for President Obama in last night’s State of the Union address, only briefly referencing the Affordable Care Act, the Administration’s Ebola response, and proposing a new initiative on precision medicine “to bring us closer to curing diseases like cancer and diabetes.”

Philadelphia is fortunate to have an institution like The Barnes Foundation—a unique arts organization with one of the finest collections of post-impressionist and early modern paintings—as a member of the community.They also realize that there are many factors that contribute to a healthy community, including vaccinations.

As the end of the year draws near, we took a close look at which recent posts (blog, Twitter, Facebook, Linked in, YouTube) had the most visits, clicks, likes, shares, etc. We thought the outcome was interesting and we figured maybe you would too. So, without any further delay, here are the top 5 topics we've discussed recently on More than medicine:

One year ago today, GSK announced its Bioelectronics Innovation Challenge – a $1 million prize to the first team to generate a small, implantable, wireless device that can record, stimulate and block functionally-specific neural signals to and from a specific visceral organ in functional models. In September, GSK created a $5 million Innovation Challenge Fund for teams to apply for support in their efforts to solving the challenge. After a rigorous review of 25 applications from across the globe, the GSK Bioelectronics R&D team selected 10 teams to receive support from the Innovation Challenge Fund.

This week marks National Influenza Vaccination Week and, today, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is hosting a Tweet chat from 1-2 PM EST (#NIVW2014) to highlight the importance of continuing flu immunization through the holiday season and beyond, especially for people at high risk of developing the flu or flu-related complications. Peak flu season on average starts about now and lasts through February.

For nearly 20 years, we've honored outstanding nonprofit organizations for their work on building healthy communities in and around our campuses in Durham, NC and Philadelphia, PA through the GSK IMPACT Awards. This past Tuesday, December 2, we hosted the 2014 IMPACT Award ceremony for the Philadelphia winners and awarded $40,000 to nine local nonprofits. These winners address pressing community health challenges, including helping kids succeed in school, improving access to affordable housing, and increasing healthy eating.